Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number and proportion of local authorities who have advised their local childcare providers of their hourly rate from 1 April 2024; and what steps she is taking to help ensure that childcare providers have adequate notice to prepare for the expanded roll-out.

The 2024/25 government hourly funding rates for all the early years entitlements for individual local authorities were announced on 29 November 2023 to reflect the funding uplifts and the national living wage increase.

The department is in close communication with local authorities and recognises the need to ensure childcare providers have early confirmation of their early years funding rates for 2024/25. The department now anticipates that all local authorities will have confirmed funding rates that come into force from 1 April 2024 no later than the end of February 2024.

As of 31 January 2024, the department can confirm that over 40 local authorities in England have published their final funding rates for providers. Where local authorities have not yet published the final rates, the vast majority have provided indicative rates to their providers to support in their business planning.

On 2 February 2024, the department also took steps to provide greater funding certainty to nurseries and childcare providers going forwards. Each year, the government sets out funding rates in the autumn, to take effect in the following financial year. A window, likely to be 8 weeks, will be introduced, within which local authorities have to confirm rates, after the point the department announces local authority hourly rates. The department will work with the sector in the coming weeks to finalise the approach.